


Boy with a Silver Lining

by babyhulk



Category: Cricket RPF
Genre: Boys In Love, Fluff, Humor, M/M, did I implant Maxi in the test side purely because I wanted him there? you won't prove a thing, loose bus change, not quite idiots in love because they're already together, shadow batting, shenanigans from a cheeky Tim Paine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-23
Updated: 2019-09-23
Packaged: 2020-10-26 19:36:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20747612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/babyhulk/pseuds/babyhulk
Summary: “Can someone explain to me how my captain and former captain have been together for five fucking years and no one fucking knew?” Glenn demands.“You two? What the fuck?” Dave asks.Nathan stares at them. “You’re pulling me leg, aren’t you?”“Are y—what the fuck is going on?” Finchy blurts out. “You two are getting married?”~~~Or, Steve and Tim have been dating for five years, nobody knows, and Justin Langer just wants a break. Also, there's an engagement but it's difficult to plan a wedding when your potential guests have no idea you're even dating anyone.





	Boy with a Silver Lining

**Author's Note:**

  * For [celebel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/celebel/gifts).

> Hello. This happened because @somesunnyda-y on Tumblr made a couple of posts, we had a chat, there was a fic and I was utterly converted to this ship in 0.5 seconds. So this one's for you, mate, thanks for pulling me into this void. 
> 
> Inspired by [these bloody pictures](https://somesunnyda-y.tumblr.com/post/187595651299/hello-id-like-to-introduce-you-to-my-religion), [this post and caption ](https://somesunnyda-y.tumblr.com/post/187772929229/are-we-to-expect-a-happy-announcement-by-the-end) which ended me, and several bubbly songs about being in love, including and not limited to Rude! by Magic, Paper Rings by T Swift, and Nintendo by Todd Carey. Also mentioned is this [glorious moment](https://j-ustkeepwalking.tumblr.com/post/187815618313/striveforgreatnessss-steve-smiths-hilarious) from the 2017/18 Ashes.

Steve thinks he might have just about managed to slip away unnoticed.

The team suite post-meeting had only ended in chaos when Finchy had offhandedly remarked that the Renegades would take the BBL title this year, despite being the only Renegade in the room, and literally every other player had scoffed in protest. Memorably, Glenn had told him not to bother coming home.

The hotel corridor is blessedly silent though Steve can hear the muffled arguments slipping through the cracks around the door behind him. He huffs a laugh as he strolls away. Part of him wanted to defend the Sixers but the larger, more fidgety part of him had overwhelmed that impulse, wanting to get away.

The last test starts tomorrow. Steve regrets the block of chocolate he’d eaten two days prior after the double hundred. Somehow it feels like the reason he feels more on edge, more antsy, as the corridor in front of him wavers into the dusty, grassless pitch of the Cape Town stadium and his hands curl around the invisible curve of the handle of his favourite bat. Rabada would try a good length ball, he thinks, but he could drive that off-side—

A soft amused laugh breaks into his thoughts, and the dry heat of the South African summer and the scratch of spikes on the crease shimmers away.

Steve finds Tim standing behind him, a sheaf of papers in one hand and the other resting on his hip, a grin pulling at his mouth, eyes twinkling in the soft corridor lights.

“You get weirder every day,” is what he says, grinning wider.

Steve uncurls his hands, stretching his fingers out and relaxing them before rolling his eyes with a laugh. “You say that like you don’t like that.”

“Oh you know I like it,” Tim says and his tone slips deeper, grin turning sharper.

Steve snorts a laugh he can’t help, shaking his head and running a hand through his hair. “What’s the verdict then? Anyone dead in there?”

He gestures behind Tim towards the team suite.

Tim falls into step beside Steve, a delighted laugh spilling out of him as he says, “Smudge, mate, three stars players, three Sydney players and a feisty hurricanes lad against one renegade? Finchy is lucky to be alive.”

“I bet he is.”

Silence falls over them as they wander down the carpeted hallway.

Tim clears his throat. “So, about what I asked you the other day...”

Steve falters but doesn’t break his stride and some inexplicable feeling crowding his throat seals his mouth shut. Tim sighs when Steve says nothing.

“Smudge, it’s been almost five years, surely it’s worth thinking about.”

It’s worth thinking about, it is. Steve had done nothing else in his limited spare time than think about those five words that Tim had casually let slip on their flight down from Johannesburg. And he wants to do it. _We should tell the boys._

But something is stopping him, some rare irrational fear that had stopped him from telling Tim that he agreed, that it would be a nice idea.

His heart is beating just this side of too hard, making its presence unbearably known, and maybe the uncertainty is plain on his face or maybe Tim just knows him that well, because Tim steps in close, a glance thrown up and down the corridor before he curls a hand around the back of his neck, making Steve look up to meet soft dark grey eyes.

“Hey, I’m not trying to push you,” Tim says quietly.

His thumb brush up and down on the back of Steve’s neck and Steve’s shoulders drop. That earns a little smug grin which curls across Tim’s mouth like an invitation. Steve ignores him.

“I just want to know where your head’s at,” Tim continues. “Because you’ve not said a word to me about it.”

Steve curls his hand around Tim’s forearm and smiles when Tim’s eyes brighten, tiny crinkles fanning out beside them.

“It’s...it’s not that I don’t want to,” Steve says after a moment. “I don’t think it’ll be a problem, less because JL already knows. But I just don’t know, I suppose, I dunno why I’m so...I want to tell them, it’s just—”

“I know,” Tim murmurs. His fingers trail up to slide into Steve’s hair, nails gentle against his scalp. “But to their credit, they’re a good bunch of boys.”

Steve grins then and slips his free hand around Tim’s waist, wrapping his fingers into the back of his shirt. “They’d have to be to have put up with the two of us when we had that fucking argument about moving in together back during the last Ashes.”

Tim groans even as a laugh spills out him, cheeks rising until his eyes are slits, cheeky grey sparkling under the hallway lights. “Oh don’t bring that up, babe, please, that was the single most fucking ridiculous argument we’ve ever had. You were so fucking wound up, which led to possibly the greatest moment of the summer bar winning the Ashes. The way you yelled at Shaun and Mitch…You also refused to let me speak off the field. How many ice blocks did you shove into my mouth?”

“At least thirty,” Steve says, laughing. “I was not moving to fucking Hobart.”

Tim’s eyes gleam a dark blue grey as he reels him closer and Steve lets the grins peter out into a smile, eyebrow arched up at him. “You’re just fucking lucky nobody questioned me ‘buying a house’ in Sydney to give me an excuse to be there all the time.”

“You love Sydney,” Steve murmurs.

“I love _you_, you idiot. Sydney can fuck right off.”

Steve is still rolling his eyes when Tim leans down to kiss him. It’s quick, hot and teasing, and Steve can’t help but lick his lips after Tim pulls away with a smirk curving the edge of his mouth.

“So we’re doing it then?” He asks and there’s a laugh caught up in the words when Steve blinks at him for a moment.

He clears his throat. “Well,” he says, tipping his head back further into Tim’s grip. “Can’t have a wedding without any guests, eh?”

Tim’s smile turns blinding.

*

In the end, the careful planning Steve puts into deciding when to tell the boys about them goes down the drain in the wake of them winning the test series 3-2.

Tim is bouncing off the walls, barely drunk but clearly high on adrenalin after watching his bowling attack decimate the South African batting order within a day. Steve grins as Tim slings his arm around JL’s shoulders are they thunder into the dressing room, beer flowing and laughter relaxed.

“Oi, you lot!” Tim calls. “Listen up!”

Steve settles back against wall of his booth, fingers loose around a bottle, quietly happy, watching his boyfriend wave around a bottle of his own, still clinging on to a fond-looking JL.

“_LISTEN UP!”_ Tim bellows and the dressing room finally quietens to a hum. Tim grins. “That was good work out there today, I’m proud of you all and all of you are invited to my wedding!”

The smile freezes on Steve’s face and he stares, wide-eyed, at the sparkling dark grey eyes of his insane boyfriend. What the fuck is he doing?! Tim knows the plan. They were supposed to tell the boys at a team meeting, quietly, and to Not. Make. A. Big. Deal. Out of it. _Tim_.

“You’re getting married?” Pat asks, elation replaced with honest confusion.

“Yeah, mate, who the fuck’re you gettin’ married to?” Nathan extricates himself from under a bemused Mitch Starc’s arm, cocking a hip. “And how don’t we know about it?”

Matty Wade scoffs. “I think the better question is who the fuck wants to marry you?”

Steve almost bristles at that but Tim raises his beer to it, grinning, and he lets it go.

“When did you get a girlfriend?” Finchy calls from the other side of the room. Dave echoes the same question.

Tim’s eyes take on a tell-tale gleam and his smile tips into dangerous territory, and all Steve can do is sit here and watch it happen because if he goes rushing up to stop him, it’d be as good as telling. Behind the bubbling nerves, there’s the familiar warmth of exasperated fondness because he does love this stupid man.

JL is watching Tim from a safe distance now, shaking his head. He turns and catches Steve’s gaze, making a pained face at him. Steve shrugs.

“Interesting question there, Finchy mate,” Tim says, rubbing his chin. “I wouldn’t exactly say it’s a girlfriend. It’s a…_friend_. If you catch my drift.”

There’s a silence for a split second before someone blurts out _‘what?!’_ which is then followed by several exclamations before Glenn snorts.

“Alright you lot, it’s not like you’ve never heard of someone being gay before. I know for a fact you lot have heard about Stoin and Zorb. People are gay, get over it.”

Steve almost laughs out loud. This is an absolute bloody pantomime.

Tim points his beer in Glenn’s direction. “Exactly the kind of attitude I was looking for. Any other questions?”

Nathan raises a hand, beer bottle still in it. “My question’s the same, mate. Who the fuck’re you getting married to?”

With an almost graceful spin of him heel, Tim turns to Steve. “Steve?”

Steve suddenly finds himself with an entire dressing room’s attention on him. “Um.” He would rather be on the receiving end of a Dale Steyn bowling spell. In fact, he would much rather be facing Mitch Johnson at his best than be facing this right now.

“Do you know who it is?” Pat asks from next to him and Steve really just doesn’t know what the hell he’s supposed to do now.

Steve glares at Tim. Tim aims a sparkly grin back at him.

“Well,” he says, “I could tell you if I know who it is. I guess I could also tell you that the proposal happened while they were alone in the other person’s back garden and Timmy cried.”

A squawk of protest comes from Tim but Steve continues, eyes glued on his boyfriend who is slowly turning red. Steve’s traitorous heart lurches because even after five years, being able to rattle his boyfriend is something that makes his pulse race.

“I could tell you that Tim tripped over his own feet before he asked the other person out. I could tell you a lot of things.” Steve’s glare melts, his heart steady and winched tight with every single overwhelming feeling he has for the man standing at the opposite end of the room. He keeps his eyes on Tim. “But what I will tell you is that the person is someone all of you know.”

There’s an outcry.

They’re a good lot, Steve thinks, grinning, but they’re not exactly—

“Wait a minute!” Glenn yells above the speculative hissing around them. He turns to Steve and Steve knows immediately that Glenn has figured it out. “How do you know he cried if they were alone in the other dude’s backyard? Painey wouldn’t have told you that.”

“Maxi’s right,” Nathan mutters. “Painey wouldn’t admit to crying…ever.”

Conversation dies and only the sound of JL’s exhausted sigh breaks it.

“Tim, get off the bench. Sit down, Wade, I know you want answers.” He rubs his eyes and waits for a beat. Steve knows he’s a bit of a showman at heart beneath the patient exterior. “Now. Steve, Tim, congratulations on finally getting engaged, my wife owes me fifty bucks. I’m glad you’re finally telling this lot because frankly, watching them go about blind as you please to the two of you revolving around each other for the last couple years has been exhausting, I can’t imagine being around for all five of them. So.” JL claps his hands together and grins. “Congratulations both of you.”

There’s a ringing, stunned silence in the wake of that. JL crosses his arms and his pleased grin doesn’t waver as he studies the shell-shocked faces around the room. Steve almost laughs out loud. So maybe this is a bit more satisfying than not making a big deal out of it. Maybe.

Tim has shit-eating grin spreading across his face as he steps down from the bench and crosses the room. Steve barely has time to blink before Tim throws himself across his lap and presses a smacking kiss to his cheek.

“Oh you’re a pest,” Steve groans, wiping the saliva off his cheek. “Seriously.”

“Love you, Smudge,” Tim gloats, glee dripping from through his tone. He softens and presses a slower, softer kiss to his temple. “You know I do.”

Steve studies the glittering eyes, the same smile he fell in love with, and relaxes back against the wall, shifting Tim till he fit perfectly into his usual grooves on Steve’s lap, wrapping a hand around his waist, and settles the other on his thighs.

“Wouldn’t have asked you to marry me if I didn’t love you,” he murmurs. “Surprised you enough that you cried.”

Tim pinches the back of his neck. “Fuck off, I didn’t.”

Steve grins. “You definitely did.” He reaches up to kiss the light flush dusted across the arch of those cheekbones. “It was cute.”

It’s like that snaps whatever trance the others were under because suddenly there’s an uproar.

Steve flinches as room erupts with disbelief and stunned exclamations, a thousand different questions hurled at them as the boys leap to their feet. Tim wriggles a little on his lap and Steve digs his fingers into his waist and thigh in warning.

Tim laughs under his breath. “Problem, babe?”

Steve pokes his waist and Tim jumps. He’d be having words about playing things up just to make up for five years of trying to maintain a careful distance but also being equally close to avoid suspicious. It’s a fine line that they had crossed several times, no thanks to Tim who had vowed to himself to kiss Steve in every iconic cricket venue across the known world. He supposes he has done nothing to discourage that. They had already managed a fair few of them, somehow.

“Can someone explain to me how my captain and former captain have been together for five fucking years and no one fucking knew?” Glenn demands.

“You two? What the fuck?” Dave asks.

Nathan stares at them. “You’re pulling me leg, aren’t you?”

“Are y—what the fuck is going on?” Finchy blurts out. “You two are getting married?”

“Oh my god, it all makes sense.”

Steve raises his head to look at Pat, who’s staring into the middle distance with wild blue eyes following that explosion of dawning realisation, before they flick back at the two of them.

“What makes sense, Patty C?” Tim asks.

Pat huffs a little laugh and shakes his head, looking almost awed.

“The argument about Sydney and Hobart last Ashes,” he says. “I thought it was so weird and it’s never made any sense to me until now. Jesus. I was walking past Tim’s room in Adelaide and I heard this massive blow-up between them, arguing about Sydney and Hobart and where it’d be easier to live.” Pat looks away from the room and back to Steve, a grin pulling at his mouth. “You were arguing about moving in together.”

Tim is shaking with quiet laughter as Steve’s forehead drops to Tim’s shoulder. He cannot believe this. He cannot believe that was overheard.

“I always knew you were an incredibly intelligent boy, Pat,” he says after several moments, looking up.

Pat just grins at him, blue eyes twinkling, pleased.

“Unfuckingbelievable,” someone murmurs. Steve thinks it might’ve been Glenn.

“So, anyway,” Tim says loudly. “Point is, we can’t have a wedding without inviting you morons. So we had to tell you.”

“And otherwise you wouldn’t have?” Mitch Starc finally speaks up, raising his eyebrows.  
Told us, that is.”

Steve scratches his head. “Would have, um, eventually, I suppose.”

“Steve thought you’d all be assholes about it,” Tim mutters and yelps when Steve digs his fingers deep into his waist. “_Oi!_ It’s true!”

“I see how it is.” Dave crosses his arms over his chest. “A man spends half his life doing throwdowns to you for extra practice, spending most of his life out in the middle with you, and you don’t even want to tell him you’re dating someone. Especially when I’ve been trying to set you up with someone since you broke up with that fucking godawful asshole you were dating before.”

Steve scrunches up his nose and lets out a weak laugh. “Sorry, Davey, mate, it’s just...it was weird, I suppose. I didn’t really know how to tell you.”

“_‘Mate, I’m dating Tim’_ would’ve been a good start,” Dave says dryly. “Simple, to the fucking point.”

“Right, yeah, and you’d have just dealt with that, would you?”

Dave stares him down before his eyes flick to Tim sprawled across Steve’s lap like he belongs there. Steve smiles, eyes drifting across the cut of Tim’s jaw, the hint of a dimple beneath the skin, the gleam of mischievous grey eyes. He does belong here. Dave is looking at him, calculating and considering, when Steve manages to pull his eyes away from Tim.

He sighs. His arms uncross and one rises to rub an eyebrow. “Fuck’s sake. Yeah, yeah ‘course I’d have dealt with it if it makes you look that dopey, Steve.”

Steve just laughs. It’s not the first time he’s heard that. His dad had made it a point to start calling him Dopey every time Tim was around and Steve couldn’t wipe the frankly besotted smile off his face.

“Suppose that’s because I’m in love with him,” he says, shrugging.

Somewhere, someone coos. _“Thank you, _Usman,” Tim calls. “We are rather adorable, if I do say so myself.”

There’s a general snort at that. Dave looks like he’s verging on strangling Tim and Steve would appreciate if—

Tim cackles. “He’s my dopey boy, David.”

Never mind.

“Get you a man,” Marnus sighs into the buzz of laughter and teasing grins.

“You’re not secretly engaged too, are you, lad?” Nathan asks him, tossing back a mouthful of beer. “You’ve been smudge clone for most of your career, LBS.”

Marnus rolls his eyes. “It’s not my fault none of you grandpas keep up with the slang.”

Ussie laughs and his eyes are warm. “I’m with you on that one, mate. These grandpas, sleeping on the good stuff. Get you a fucking man. Congrats, boys.”

Steve tightens his hold on Tim and smiles. “Thanks, mate.”

“Yeah,” Tim says, smiling. “Thanks, Uz.”

“Alright you lot, good work today,” JL finally says. He’s grinning wide as he pulls out a bottle of the good champagne. “I suggest we celebrate the win and the engagement properly.”

A chorus of cheers resonate through the dressing room and as Tim makes to leap off his lap, Steve pulls him in for a kiss. The cheers grow in volume, catcalls mixed into the rowdy yelling, and Steve finds himself grinning as Tim presses in for more, the same helpless smile pulling at his cheeks. It makes the kiss feel ridiculous, neither of them can stop smiling, but Steve wouldn’t trade this moment for the world. 

They end up drenched in champagne, dusted in white foam, and caught up in the middle of a sticky, soaked elated group hug as Nathan leads the team song in a rousing chorus that seems to shake the very foundations beneath their feet.

Steve has Tim in his arms, his boys around him, and his future unfurling like a newborn star, bright and exciting in front of his eyes, and he thinks that, after the ups and downs over the past five years, he might be the happiest he has ever been.

**Author's Note:**

> Well...there's that. Please leave a comment if you enjoyed this xx Thanks for reading!


End file.
